Worksites, such as, for example, mine sites, landfills, quarries, construction sites, etc., commonly undergo geographic alteration by machines and/or workers performing various tasks thereon. For example, at a coal mining site, mounds of coal are continually moved by dozers about the site, onto conveyors, into chutes, etc., to prepare the coal for transport. Likewise, on an excavation site, terrain is altered by digging, grading, leveling, or otherwise preparing the terrain for various uses.
It may be useful to map terrain in some applications. For instance, it may be advantageous to map worksite terrain for identifying terrain elevation information at various points within a worksite. One system for mapping terrain is described in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0245169 (the '169 publication) to O'Connor. The '169 publication describes generating a three-dimensional terrain map of a golf course. Various vehicles, such as lawn mowers and golf carts, are equipped with global positioning system (GPS) receivers for generating location data. The location data generated by the various GPS receivers are received by a map generator in order to generate a three-dimensional terrain map using the location data.
Although the system of the '169 publication may map terrain, it may be inefficient and inaccurate. For example, the system requires the use of GPS receivers for generating location data used to create the terrain map. Some vehicles, however, are not equipped with GPS receivers, and therefore those vehicles would not be able to provide information for creating the terrain map. Also, the location data generated using the GPS receivers may be inaccurate, or the GPS (e.g., a GPS satellite) may experience system outages. As a result, an inaccurate and/or incomplete terrain map may be created.
The disclosed system is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems set forth above.